














QM COr rOyt NMO o 





MILE ZOLA 


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THE LIBRARY 
OF 
THE UNIVERSIEY. 
OF CALIFORNIA 
EOS ANGERES 











Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2007 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/deathemi00zolaiala 


DEATH. 








DEATH 


By 
EMILE ZOLA 


THE WARREN PRESS 
New York 








CopyriGHT 1911, By 
Tre WaRREN PREsS 


DEATH. 


HE comte de Verteuil is fifty-five 
ag years old. He belongs to one of the 
most notable families of France, 

and is the owner of a great fortune. Being 
out of sympathy with the government, he 
has busied himself as he could; has written 
articles for serious magazines, which have 
secured for him the entrée to the Academy 
of moral and political sciences. He has 
plunged into business, has been successively 
enthusiastic over agriculture stock farming, 
and the fine arts. At one time he was even 
deputy, and distinguished himself by the 


vehemence of his opposition. 


539198 


LIBRARY 








DEATH. 








The comtesse Mathilde de Verteuil is 
forty-six. She is still referred to as the most 
adorable blonde in Paris. Age seems to 
whiten her skin. She was formerly some- 
what thin; now her shoulders, in maturing, 
have taken on the roundness of a silky fruit. 
Never was she more beautiful. When she 
enters a drawing-room, with her golden 
hair and the satin of her throat, she is like a 
star in its rising; and women of twenty 
envy her. 

The household of the count and countess 
is one of those that people do not discuss. 
They married as people in their world often- 
est do marry. Some will even assure you 
that they lived very well together for six 
years. At that time they had a son, Roger, 
who is a lieutenant, and a daughter, 
Blanche, whom they married off last year 
to M. de Bussae, receiver of petitions. Their 








DEATH. 








chief common interest is their children. 
During the years since they broke with one 
another, they have remained good friends, 
with a great fund of egotism. They consult 
together, treat each other with perfect good 
taste before the world, but shut themselves 
up afterwards in their own apartments, 
where they receive their intimate friends 
as they please. 

But, one night, Mathilde comes home 
from a ball toward two o’clock in the morn- 
ing. Her maid undresses her; then, just as 
she is about to go out, says,— 





“Monsieur le comte is not very well 
this evening.” 


The countess, half asleep, lazily turns her 
head. 


—“Ah!” she murmurs. 

She stretches herself, then adds,— 

—‘“Wake me to-morrow at ten; I am 
expecting the dressmaker.” 








DEATH. 








The following day, at breakfast, as the 
count does not appear, the countess first 
sends for news of him. The next instant 
she makes up her mind to go to him. She 
finds him in bed, very pale and very cere- 
monious. Three physicians have been there 
already, have talked together in an under- 
tone, and left prescriptions; they are to re- 
turn in the evening. The sick man is cared 
for by two servants, who move about the 
room, grave and mute, muffling the noise 
of their heels on the carpet. The large 
chamber lies silent in cold severity; not a 
towel is lying about, not a piece of furni- 
ture is out of its place. It is proper and 
dignified sickness, orderly sickness, that ex- 
pects calls. 

“Are you in pain, my dear?” asks the 


countess, as she comes into the room. 








DEATH. 








The count makes an effort to smile. 

—“Oh! a little tired,’ he answers. All 
I need is rest... . I thank you for putting 
yourself out to come.” 

Two days pass. The chamber remains dig- 
nified; everything is in its place, the medi- 
cines disappear without leaving a spot on 
the furniture. The servants’ close-shaven 
faces do not even permit themselves to ex- 
press a touch of boredom. Yet the count 
knows that he is in danger of death; he has 
insisted upon the truth from his doctors, 
and lets them do their will, without a pro- 
test. Most of the time he lies there with 
closed eyes, or perhaps looks steadily be- 
fore him, as if thinking of his solitude. 

To their friends the countess says that 
her husband is very ill. Yet she does not 
change her habits, but eats and sleeps and 


goes out as usual. Every morning and 








DEATH. 








every evening she comes herself to ask the 
count how he is. 

—‘Well? are you better, my dear?” 
“Yes, much better, thank you, my 
dear Mathilde.” 

—““If you wished, I would stay with 
you.” 








“No, that is useless. Julien and 
Francois do very well. ... What is the use 
of tiring you?” 

Between them, they understand each 
other; they have lived apart, and expect to 
die apart. The count has that bitter, selfish 
satisfaction of the egoist, who wishes to die 
alone, without having around his bed the 
comedies of grief. He cuts short as far as 
possible, for himself and the countess, the 
unpleasantness of the last interview. His 
last will is to go with propriety, as a man 
of the world who means to trouble and dis- 
gust no one. 


Io 








DEATH. 








Yet, one evening, he has no breath left; 
he knows that he will not live through the 
night. Then, as the countess comes up to 
pay her usual visit, he says to her, calling 
up a last smile,— 

—*“Do not go... .I do not feel well.” 

He wishes to spare her the world’s gossip. 
She, on her part, expected this request of 
him; and she takes her place in the room. 
The physicians do not leave the dying man. 
The two servants finish their duty with the 
same silent punctiliousness. The children, 
Roger and Blanche, have been sent for, and 
are at the bedside with their mother. Other 
relatives are in an adjoining room. The 
night passes so, in solemn waiting. In the 
morning the last sacraments are adminis- 
tered, the count receives communion in the 
presence of all, to give a last testimony to 
religion. The ceremony is over; he can 
die. 


II 








DEATH. 








But he is in no haste; he seems to regain 
his strength, so as to avoid a convulsive and 
clamorous death. His breathing, in the 
large, severe room, gives forth only the 
broken sound of a clock out of order. It is 
a well-bred man who is passing away; and, 
when he has kissed his wife and children, 
he pushes them from him with a movement 
of his arm; he falls against the wall, and 
dies alone. 

Then one of the physicians bends over 
him, closes the dead man’s eyes. He says in 
an undertone,— 


“Tt is all over.” 





Sighs and tears rise amid the stillness. 
The countess, Roger, and Blanche are on 
their knees. They weep between their 
clasped hands; no one sees their faces. Then 
the two children lead away their mother, 
who, at the door, sways her body in one last 


12 








DEATH. 








sob, to emphasize her despair; and, from 
this moment, the dead man belongs to the 
pomp of his obsequies. 

The physicians have gone, rounding their 
shoulders, and assuming an expression of 
vague regret. The parish priest is sent for, 
to wake with the body. The two servants 
stay with this priest, seated on chairs, stiff 
and dignified ; it is the expected end of their 
service. One of them sees a spoon that has 
been left on a table; he gets up, and slips 
it quickly into his pocket, that the fine or- 
derliness of the room may not be disturbed. 

In the room below, the great drawing- 
room, a noise of hammering is heard; the up- 
holsterers are getting it ready for the dead 
man to lie in state. The whole day is taken 
up with the embalming; the doors are 
closed, the embalmer is alone with his as- 
sistants. When they bring the count down- 


13 








DEATH. 








stairs, next day, and he lies in state, he is 
in evening dress, he has the freshness of 
youth. 

At nine o’clock on the morning of the 
funeral, the house begins to fill with the 
murmur of voices. The son and son-in-law 
of the deceased receive the crowd in a par- 
lor on the ground floor; they bow, they pre- 
serve the mute politeness of sorrowing peo- 
ple. All the notabilities are there; the no- 
bility, the army, the magistracy; there are 
even senators and members of the Institute. 

Finally, at ten o’clock, the procession 
sets out for the church. The hearse is an 
elegant vehicle, adorned with plumes, 
draped in silver-fringed hangings. The pall- 
bearers are a marshal of France, a duke, an 
old friend of the deceased, an ex-minister, 
and an academician. Roger de Verteuil and 


M. de Bussac lead the mourning. Next 


14 








DEATH. 








comes the procession, a crowd of people in 
black gloves and cravats, all of them per- 
sonages of importance, choking in the dust, 
and walking with the dull tread of a dis- 
persed flock of sheep. 

The whole neighborhood is at the win- 
dows; people stand in rows on the side- 
walks, raise their hats, and watch the trium- 
phal hearse pass by, with a shake of the 
head. Traffic is interrupted by the endless 
line of mourning coaches, almost all empty; 
omnibuses and cabs are blocked up in the 
cross streets; you hear the coachmen’s oaths 
and the crack of whips. And, all this time, 
the comtesse de Verteuil is at home, shut 
up in her room, having given out that her 
tears have overcome her. Stretched out on 
a lounge, playing with the tassel of her gir- 
dle, she looks at the ceiling, relieved and 


pensive. 








DEATH. 








At the church the ceremony lasts nearly 
two hours. All the clergy is excited, ever 
since early morning, you could see nothing 
but priests running busily about in sur- 
plices, giving orders, mopping their fore- 
heads, blowing their noses with resounding 
blasts. In the middle of the nave, hung 
with black, a coffin is flaming with candles. 
At last, the cortege has been shown to its 
seats, the women on the left, the men on 
the right; the organ rolls out its lamenta- 
tions, the choristers drone heavily, the choir 
boys give shrill sobs; while, in the torches 
green flames burn high, adding their funeral 
pallor to the pomp of the ceremony. 

“Isn’t Faure to sing?” asks a deputy of 
his neighbor. 

——“Yes, I think so,” answers the neigh- 
bor, a resplendent individual, given to smil- 
ing at the ladies across the aisle. 








DEATH. 








And, as the singer’s voice rises in the 
vibrating nave,— 

“Ah! what a method, what breadth of 
style!” he goes on in an undertone, nodding 
his head in ecstasy. 

All present are carried away. The ladies 
think of their evenings at the Opera. This 
Faure surely has talent! A friend of the 
deceased goes so far as to say,— 

“He never sang better! ... It’s a 





pity poor Verteuil can’t hear him, he who 
loved to hear him so much!” 

The choristers, in black copes, walk round 
the coffin. The priests, twenty in number, 
complicate the ceremonial, make genuflec- 
tions, wave their holy-water sprinklers. At 
last, the mourners themselves file before the 
casket, the sprinklers are handed round. 
And they go out, after shaking hands with 
the family. Outside, the broad daylight 
blinds the crowd. 


17 








DEATH. 








It is a fine June day. Filmy threads 
wave in the hot air. Then before the 
church, in the little square, there is jostling. 
The procession takes long in re-forming. 
Those who do not care to go farther, vanish. 
Over two hundred yards off, at the end of 
the street, you already see the plumes of 
the hearse nodding and losing themselves in 
the distance, while the square is still all 
blocked up with carriages. You hear the 
slamming of the carriage doors and the brisk 
trot of the horses on the paving. Yet the 
coachmen fall into line, the procession 
wends its way to the cemetery. 

The people in the carriages lie back at 
their ease; you might imagine them to be go- 
ing to the Bois, slowly, in the Paris 
spring weather. As the hearse is no longer 
in sight, the burial is soon forgotten; and 
conversations are started, the ladies talk 


18 








DEATH. 








of the summer season, the men chat about 
their business. 

“Tell me, my dear, are you going to 
Dieppe again this year?” 

“Yes, perhaps. But it will not be till 
August. ... We go on Saturday to our place 
in the Loire.” 

“Come now, my dear fellow, he did in- 
tercept the letter, and they fought! Oh! 
very mildly; a mere scratch. . . . In the 
evening, I dined with him at the club. He 
even won twenty-five louis from me.” 

“T say, isn’t the meeting of stockholders 
for day after to-morrow? ... They want 
to put me on the committee. I’m so busy 
that I don’t know that I shall be abie....” 

A minute ago, the procession turned into 
an avenue. A cool shade falls from the 
trees, and the gay flashes of sunshine sing 
gleefully amid the foliage. Suddenly, a 


19 








DEATH. 








giddy lady leans out of a carriage window, 
and exclaims,— 

“Really! it’s enchanting out here!” 

Just at this point the procession turns in- 
to the Montparnasse cemetery. Voices are 
hushed, nothing is heard save the wheels 
grinding on the gravel of the avenues. They 
have to go all the way to the end; the Ver- 
teuils’ lot is at the last turn, on the left,— 
a large tomb of white marble, a sort of 
chapel, highly adorned with sculpture. The 
casket is set down before the door of this 
chapel, and the speeches begin. 

There are four. The ex-minister recalls 
the political life of the deceased, whom he 
represents to have been a modest genius, 
who would have served his country, had he 
not dispised intrigue. Next, a_ friend 
speaks of the private virtues of him whom 
the whole world mourns. Then an un- 


20 








DEATH. 








known gentleman addresses the assembled 
crowd as delegate of an industrial society 
of which the comte de Verteuil was honor- 
ary president. Lastly a little gray-haired 
man expresses the regrets of the Academy 
of moral and political sciences. 

Meanwhile, those present are taking an 
interest in the surrounding tombs, read the 
inscriptions on the marble slabs. Those 
who listen hard catch only a word, here and 
there. An old man with pursed-up lips, 
after catching these fragments of sentences, 
“  ..the high qualities of heart, the gener- 
osity and benevolence of a great character 
...” mutters, with a jerk of his chin,— 

“Ah, indeed! yes, I knew him, he was an 
arrant dog!” 

The last farewell dies away into the air. 
When the priests have blest the body, the 


people withdraw, and no one is left in that 


ZI 








DEATH. 








sequestered nook but the gravediggers, who 
are letting down the casket into the grave. 
The cords run out with a dull, scraping 
sound, the oak casket creaks. Monsieur le 
comte de Verteuil has gone to his own place. 

And the countess, on her lounge, has not 
stirred. She is still playing with the tassel 
of her girdle, her eyes on the ceiling, lost 
in a revery which, little by little, brings a 
blush to the cheeks of the beautiful blonde. 


22 








DEATH. 








it 


Madame Gueérard is a widow. Her hus- 
band, whom she lost eight years ago, was 
a magistrate. She belongs to the upper 
middle class, and has a fortune of two mill- 
ions. She has three children, three sons, 
who, at their father’s death, inherited five 
hundred thousand franes apiece. But these 
sons have grown up like black sheep in this 
austere, cold, and prim family, with appe- 


tites and queer propensities that came no 


23 








DEATH. 








one knows whence. They ran through their 
five hundred thousand francs in a few 
years. The eldest, Charles, had a passion 
for mechanics, and squandered insane sums 
on extraordinary inventions. The second, 
Georges, let himself be led astray by wo- 
men. The third, Maurice, was swindled by 
a friend, with whom he undertook to build 
a theatre. To-day the three sons are de- 
pendent on their mother, who is willing to 
feed and lodge them, but prudently keeps 
the cupboard keys on her own person. 

All these people live in a large apartment 
in the rue de Turenne, in the Marais. 
Madame Guérard is sixty years old. With 
age have come fixed ideas. She demands, 
in her home, the quiet and good order of 
a cloister. She is miserly, counts the lumps 
of sugar, locks up the half-emptied bottles 


herself, gives out the linen and crockery 








DEATH. 








one piece at a time, according to the needs 
of the household. No doubt, her sons are 
very fond of her, and she has maintained 
absolute authority over them, in spite of 
their thirty years and their follies. But, 
when she finds herself alone with these 
three big devils, she feels an undercurrent 
of anxiety, she is always afraid they will 
ask her for money, and does not quite know 
how to refuse them. For this reason, she 
has taken care to invest her fortune in real 
estate; she owns three houses in Paris, and 
some land in the direction of Vincennes. 
These pieces of property give her the great- 
est trouble; only, her mind is at rest, she 
finds excuses for not giving large sums at 
a time. 

Charles, Georges, and Maurice, however, 
get as much out of the house as they can. 


They settle themselves there, quarreling 








DEATH. 








over every morsel, each one finding fault 
with great demands. Their mother’s death 
will make them rich again; they know it, 
and find it a sufficient pretext for waiting 
and doing nothing. Although they never 
speak of it, their constant effort is to find 
out how the division of property will fall. 
If they cannot come to an agreement, every- 
thing will have to be sold, which is always 
a ruinous operation. And they let their 
mind dwell on these matters, without any 
evil longing, solely because it is well to 
forsee everything. They are cheery, good- 
natured fellows, of average honesty; like 
everybody, they hope their mother will live 
as long as possible. They do not fret. They 
are waiting, that is all. 

One evening, on getting up from table, 
madame Guérard is taken ill. Her sons 
make her go to bed, and leave her with the 








DEATH. 








chambermaid, on her assuring them that 
she is better, that she has only a severe 
headache. But next day the old lady has 
grown worse; the family physician, being 
uneasy about her, asks for a consultation. 
Madame Guérard is in great danger. Then, 
for a week, a drama is played by the dying 
woman’s bedside. 

Her first care, when she saw herself con- 
fined to her room by sickness, was to have 
all the keys given her, and to hide them 
under her pillow. She still tries to rule 
from her bed, to protect her cupboards 
against waste. Struggles go on within her, 
doubts distress her. She makes up her 
mind only after long hesitations. Her 
three sons are there, and she studies them 
with her dim eyes, she waits for a happy 


inspiration. 








DEATH. 








One day she has confidence in Georges. 
She makes a sign for him to approach, say- 
ing in an undertone, 

“Here, here is the key to the sideboard; 
take the sugar. ... You will lock it up safe 
again, and bring me back the key.” 

Another day she distrusts Georges, she 
follows him about with her eye as soon as 
he stirs, as if she were afraid of seeing him 
slip the knickknacks on the mantelpiece 
into his pockets. She calls Charles, in- 
trusts him with a key in his turn, whisper- 
ing, 

“The chambermaid will go with you. You 
will see that she takes out some sheets, and 
will lock up, yourself.” 

In her last agony, this is her torture,—no 
longer to be able to watch over the house- 
hold expenses. She recalls her children’s 
follies, she knows them to be lazy, large 


28 








DEATH. 








eaters, foolish, open-handed. She has long 
since lost all respect for them, who have 
realized none of her dreams, who disturb 
her habits of economy and plainness. Her 
affection alone survives and forgives. In 
the depths of her entreating eyes can be 
read that she begs them to be so good as to 
wait till she is no longer there, before emp- 
tying her drawers and dividing her goods. 
This division before her very eyes would be 
a torture to her expiring avarice. 
Meanwhile, Charles, Georges, and Mau- 
rice show themselves very kind to her. 
They arrange that one of them shall always 
be with their mother. A sincere affection 
appears in their least attentions. But, inevit- 
ably, they bring with them the thoughtless- 
ness of out of doors, the smell of the cigar 
they have just smoked, their interest in the 
news of the town. The sick woman’s ego- 


29 








DEATH. 








ism suffers at her not being all in all to her 
children in her last hour. Then, when she 
grows weaker, her doubts cause an increas- 
ing embarrassment between the young meu 
and herself. If they were not thinking of 
the fortune they are to inherit, she would 
put the thought of this money into their 
heads by the way she guards it up to her 
last breath. She looks at them with so 
keen an eye, in such evident fear, that they 
turn away their heads. Then she thinks 
they are standing as spies at her deathbed; 
and, in truth, they do think of it, they are 
continually brought back to the idea by 
the mute questioning of her looks. It is she 
who awakens cupidity in them. When she 
catches one of them looking thoughtful, his 
face pale, she says to him, 

“Come here to me. ... What are you 


thinking of?” 








DEATH. 








—*“Nothing, mother.” 

But he started. She shakes her head 
slowly and adds, 

“T give you a great deal of care, my chil- 
dren. Come, don’t worry. I shall soon be 
here no more.” 

They surround her, they swear they love 
her and will save her. She answers no, 
with an obstinate shake of her head; she 
goes yet farther, in her distrust. It is a 
frightful death, poisoned by money. 

The sickness last three weeks. There 
have already been five consultations; the 
greatest medical celebrities have been 
called in. The chambermaid helps mad- 
ame’s sons take care of her; and, in spite 
of all precautions, a little disorder has 
found its way into the room. All hope is 
lost, the physician announces that from one 
hour to another the patient is likely to 
yield. 


31 








DEATH. 








So, one morning that her sons think her 
asleep, they are standing near a window, 
talking among themselves about a difficul- 
ty that has come up. It is the 15th of 
July; she was in the habit of collecting the 
rent of her houses herself, and they are in 
a quandary, not knowing how to get hold 
of this money. The janitors have already 
asked for orders. In her weak condition, 
they cannot talk business with her. Yet, 
if an accident were to occur, they would 
need the rents to defray certain personal 
expenses. 

“Good heavens!” says Charles in a low 
voice, “I'll go if you wish, and call upou 
the tenants. ... They will understand the 
situation, they will pay.” 

But Georges and Maurice have little faith 
in this plan. They, too, have grown sus- 


picious. 


32 








DEATH. 








“We might go with you,” says the former. 
“All three of us will have expenses to meet.” 

“Well! I will bring you the money... . 
You don’t think me capable of keeping it, 
surely !” 

“No; but it would be just as well for us 
to be together. It will be more regular.” 

And they look at one another with eyes 
in which already glisten the anger and ill- 
will of sharing. The succession is open; 
each one wants to secure the largest share 
for himself. Charles suddenly goes on, car- 
rying out aloud the idea that his brothers 
are thinking to themselves,— 

“Listen: we will sell; that will be best. . . 
If we quarrel to-day, we shall fairly eat 
each other up to-morrow.” 

But a rattling in the sick woman's throat 
makes them turn their heads quickly. Their 


mother has risen up in bed, white, with 


a5 








DEATH. 








haggard eyes, her body shaken with a fit 
of trembling. She has heard, she stretches 
out her thin arms, she repeats in a despair- 
ing voice, 

——“My children. ... My children... .” 

And a spasm throws her back upon her 
pillow; she dies with the atrocious thought 
in her mind that her sons are robbing her. 

All three terrified, have fallen upon their 
knees by the bedside. They kiss the hands 
of the dead, they close her eyes with sobs. 
At this moment, their childhood returns 
once more to their hearts, and they are 
nothing but orphans. But this frightful 
death remains in the depths of their being, 
as a remorse and as a hate. 

The toilette of the dead woman is attend- 
ed to by the chambermaid. A sister of 
charity is sent for to watch with the body. 


Meanwhile, the sons are running on er- 








DEATH. 








rands; they go and make their declaration 
of the decease, order the engraved an- 
nouncements to relatives and friends, ar- 
range for the funeral ceremony. At night 
they relieve one another, and watch with 
the sister. In the room, the curtains of 
which are drawn, the dead woman rests 
stretched out on the bed, her head rigid, 
her hands crossed, a silver crucifix on her 
breast. Beside her, a taper burns. A sprig 
of box hangs over the rim of a vase filled 
with holy-water. And the watch ends in 
the chill of the morning. The sister asks 
for some warm milk, because she does not 
feel well. 

An hour before the funeral, the staircase 
is filled with people. The porte-cohhere is 
hung with black drapery with a silver 
fringe. There the coffin is exposed, as in 
the depths of a narrow chapel, surrounded 


35 








DEATH. 








with candles, covered with wreaths and bou- 
quets. Every one who enters takes a sprink- 
ler from the holy-water basin at the foot of 
the bier, and besprinkles the body. At 
eleven o’clock the funeral procession sets 
out. The sons of the deceased lead the 
mourners. Behind them you _ recognize 
magistrates, some large manufacturers, 
quite solemn and pompous bourgeoisie, 
keeping step as they walk, casting side 
glances at the inquisitive crowd drawn up 
along the sidewalks. There are, at the end 
of the procession, twelve mourning coaches. 
People count them; they are much com- 
mented on in the neighborhood. 
Meanwhile, those present are filled with 
pity for Charles, Georges, and Maurice, in 
dress coats, gloved in black, walking be- 
hind the coffin, their heads bowed down, 


their faces reddened with tears. For the 








DEATH. 








rest, there is but one exclamation,—thev 
are burying their mother in very proper 
fashion. The hearse is of the third class; 
it is calculated that they will be in for sev- 
eral thousand francs. An old notary says 
with a shrewd smile,— 

——“If madame Gueérard had paid for 
her funeral herself, she would have saved 
On Six carriages.” 

At the church, the portal is draped, the 
organ plays, the absolution is given by the 
parish curé. Then, when the congregation 
have filed past the body, they find the three 
sons drawn up in a single line at the en- 
trance of the nave, stationed there to shake 
hands with those present who are unabie 
to go to the cemetery. For ten minutes 
they hold out their arms, press hands with- 
out even recognizing people, biting their 


lips, holding back their tears; and it is a 


Q 








DEATH. 








great relief to them when the church is 
empty, and they resume their slow march 
behind the hearse. 

The Guérards’ family vault is in the cem- 
etery of Pere-Lachaise. Many go on foot, 
others get into the mourning coaches. The 
procession crosses the place de la Bastille, 
and follows the rue de la Roquette. The 
passers-by raise their eyes and take off 
their hats. It is a rich funeral, at which 
the workmen of that quarter gaze, as it 
passes, while they eat their sausages and 
bread. 

Arrived at the cemetery, the procession 
turns to the left, and at once finds itself 
in front of the tomb, in the shape of a Go- 
thie chapel, bearing on its pediment these 
words, cut in black,—Famille Guérard. 
The ornamented iron door, thrown wide 


open, discloses an altar table, on which 


38 








DEATH. 








candles burn. Around the monument are 
rows of other structures, of the same sort, 
forming actual streets; it looks like a cab- 
inet-maker’s shop front, with wardrobes, 
chests of drawers, secretaries, newly fin- 
ished and arranged in symmetrical rows in 
the show window. The people present are 
much interested, impressed by this archi- 
tecture, looking around for a little shade 
under the trees of the neighboring avenue. 
One lady steps aside to admire a superb 
rose-bush, growing like a bouquet of frag- 
rant blossoms over a gravestone. 
Meanwhile, the coffin has been let down. 
A priest says the last prayers, while the 
gravediggers, in blue uniforms, are wait- 
ing a few steps off. The three sons sob, 
their eyes fixed on the gaping vault, the 
slab of which has been removed; there, in 
this cool shade, they, in their turn, will one 
day come to sleep. Some friends lead them 
away, when the gravediggers come up. 


39 








DEATH. 








And, two days later, in the office of their 
mother’s lawyer, they are disputing, with 
set teeth, dry eves, and the passion of ene- 
mies who are determined not to give in on 
a single penney. It would be for their in- 
terest to wait, not to hurry on the sale of 
the property. But they cast their bald 
truths in each others’ teeth: Charles would 
run through it all with his inventions; 
Georges must have some girl to fleece him; 
Maurice is surely engaged in another wild- 
cat speculation that would swallow up their 
whole capital. In vain, the notary tries to 
induce them to come an an amicable under- 
standing. They separate, threatening one 
another. 

It is the dead woman awakening in them 
once more, With her avarice and her terror 
of being robbed. When money poisons 
death, from death comes nothing but wrath. 


There is fighting over coffins. 


4O 








DEATH. 








ELE 


M. Rousseau, at twenty, married an or- 
phan, Adele Lemercier, who was eighteen. 
Between them, they had seventy franes for 
setting up housekeeping. At first they sold 
notepaper and sticks of sealing wax under 
a doorway. Next, they hired a hole, a shop 
as large as your hand, where they stayed 
ten years, adding to their business little 
by little. Now they keep a stationery shop 
in the rue de Clichy, worth fully fifty thon- 


sand franes. 


4I 








DEATH. 








Adele has not very good health. She has 
always coughed a little. The close air of 
the shop, the sedentary life behind the 
counter, are not good for her. A physician 
whom they consulted has recommended rest 
and walks out of doors in fine weather. But 
prescriptions of that sort cannot be followed. 
when you are bent upon piling up a smali 
income quickly, to live on it in peace. Adele 
says she will rest and take walks later, 
after they have sold out and retired to the 
provinces. 

As for M. Rosseau, he is anxious, to be 
sure, on days when he sees her pale, with 
red spots on her cheeks. Only he has his 
stationery business to absorb him, he cannot 
always be at her elbow to prevent her from 
being imprudent. During some weeks h2 
cannot find a minute to speak to her about 
her health. Then, if he happens to hear 


42 








DEATH. 








her little dry cough, he scolds her, he makes 
her put on her shawl and take a walk with 
him in the Champs-Elysées. But she comes 
back more tired, coughing harder; the bus- 
tle of business once more takes hold of 
M. Rousseau; the sickness is again forgot- 
ten till another crisis comes. It is the way 
in business: you die without having time 
to take care of yourself. 

One day, M. Rousseau takes the physi- 
cian aside, and asks him to tell him frank- 
ly if his wife is in danger. The physician 
begins by saying that one must trust to 
nature, that he has seen many much sicker 
people pull through. Then, pressed with 
questions, he confesses that madame Rous- 
seau has consumption, even in a pretty ad- 
vanced stage. The husband turns pale at 
this avowal. He loves Adele for their long 
struggle together before they had white 


43 








DEATH. 








bread to eat every day. He has in her not 
only a wife, but a partner, whose activity 
and intelligence he knows. If he loses her, 
he will be stricken at once in his affection 
and in his business. However, he must 
have courage, he cannot shut up his shop, 
to weep at leisure. So he shows nothing, 
he tries not to frighten Adele by letting 
her see him with red eyes. He resumes his 
jog-trot life. By the end of a month, when- 
ever he thinks of these sad things, he per- 
suades himself that doctors are often mis- 
taken. His wife does not seem any worse. 
And so it comes about that he sees her die 
slowly, without suffering too much himself, 
his mind taken up with his business, ex- 
pecting a catastrophe, but mentally post- 
poning it to a vague future. 


Sometimes Adele repeats,— 


44 








DEATH. 








——“Ah! when we get into the country, 
you will see how well I shall be. . . . Good 
Lord! we have only eight years to wait now. 
The time will go quickly.” 

And M. Rousseau does not remember 
that they might retire at once, on smaller 
savings. To begin with, Adele would not 
agree to it. When you have set your heart 
on a certain sum, you must reach it. 

Nevertheless, madame Rousseau has had 
to take to her bed twice already. She has 
got up from it again, and come down to 
the counter. The neighbors say, “There is 
a little woman who won’t last long;” and 
they are not mistaken. Just at the time 


for taking the inventory she takes to her 


~ bed for the third time. The doctor comes 


in the morning, talks with her, signs a pre- 
scription absent-mindedly. M. Rousseau 


is warned, and knows that the fatal catas- 


45 








DEATH. 








trophe is drawing near. But taking ac- 
count of stock keeps him down-stairs in the 
shop, and he can scarcely escape for five 
minutes, from time to time. He goes up, 
when the physician is there; then he leaves 
the room with him, and reappears for a 
moment before breakfast; he goes to bed 
at eleven in a little closet, where he has 
put a folding bed. Francoise, the maid, 
tends the sick woman. A terrible girl, this 
Francoise, from Auvergne, with great awk- 
ward hands, and of dubious civility and 
cleanliness! She is rough with the dying 
woman, brings her her medicine scowling, 
makes an intolerable noise sweeping the 
room, which she leaves in great disorder ; 
phials, all sticky, lie about on the chest of 
drawers, the washbasins are never washed, 
dust-cloths hang over the backs of chairs; 


you don’t know where to set your foot, so 


46 








DEATH. 








littered up is the floor. Yet madame Rous- 
seau does not complain, and is content to 
rap on the wall with her fist, to call the 
maid, when the latter does not answer. 
Francoise has other work to do beside tak- 
ing care of her; she has to keep the shop 
clean, do the cooking for master and clerks, 
not to mention errands in the neighbor- 
hood and other odd jobs. So that madame 
cannot require her to be always by her side. 
She is cared for when there is time. 
Besides, even in bed, Adele thinks ‘of 
business. She follows the sales; asks every 
evening how things are getting on. The in- 
ventory makes her anxious. When her hus- 
band can come up to her room for a few 
minutes, she never speaks to him about her 
health; she asks him solely about the prob- 
able net profit. She is much chagrined at 


learning that the year is only middling, 


47 








DEATH. 








fourteen hundred francs behind last year. 
While burning with fever on her pillow, 
she still remembers the last week’s orders; 
she sets the accounts straight; she manages 
the house. And it is she who sends her 
husband away, if he forgets himself in her 
room. His being there will not cure her, 
and it is bad for the business. She is sure 
the clerks are staring at the passers-by, and 
she keeps repeating,— 

— “Go down, dear; I want nothing, [ 
assure you. And don’t forget to lay in a 
stock of copybooks; because the schools 
open soon, and we are short of them.” 

For a long while she tries to ignore her 
real condition. She always hopes to get 
up next day, and take her place at the 
counter again. She even makes plans: if 
she can leave the house soon, they will go 
and spend a Sunday at Saint-Cloud. Never 


48 








DEATH. 








has she had such a longing to see the trees. 
Then, of a sudden, one morning, she grows 
serious. In the night, all alone, open- 
eyed, she has realized that she is going to 
die. She says nothing till evening, lying 
there thinking, her eyes on the ceiling; and 
in the evening, she detains her husband, 
she talks quietly, as if she were submitting 
a bill to him. 

“Listen,” she says, “you will go to-mor- 
row and get a notary. There is one near 
here, in the rue Saint-Lazare.” 

“Why a notary?” cries M. Rosseau; “we 
surely haven’t come to that!” 

But she goes on in her calm, matter-of- 
fact way,— 

“May be! Only it will make me feel 
easier to know that our affairs are in or- 
der. . . . We married, when neither of us 
had anything, on the plan of holding all 


49 








DEATH. 








our property in common. Now that we 
have made a little money, I don’t want my 
family to be able to plunder you. ... My 
sister Agathe isn’t so nice that I need leave 
her anything. I would sooner take all with 
me.” 

And she sticks to it obstinately; her hus- 
band must go to-morrow and get the no- 
tary. She questions the latter at length, 
bent upon having all due precautions taken 
that the will shall not be contested. When 
the will is drawn up and the lawyer gone, 
she stretches herself, murmuring,— 

“Now I shall die content. ... I have 
well earned a trip into the country; I can't 
say I am not sorry to give up going to the 
country. But you'll go. ... Promise me, 
when you retire, to go to the place we pick- 
ed out; you know, the village where your 


mother was born, near Melun... . It wili 





give me pleasure.” 








DEATH. 








M. Rousseau weeps bitterly. She com- 
forts him; she gives him good advice, it 
will be proper for him to marry again; 
only he must choose a woman of a certain 
age, because young girls, who marry widow- 
ers, marry their money. And she points 
out a lady of their acquaintance, with 
whom she would be happy to know that he 
had made a match. 

Then, that very night, she has a fright- 
ful death-struggle. She is stifling, asks for 
air. Francoise is asleep in a chair. M. 
Rousseau, standing at the head of her bed, 
can only take the dying woman’s hand and 
press it, to tell her he is there, that he will 
not leave her. In the morning, she falls 
into a profound calm; she is very white, 
with her eyes closed, breathing slowly. Her 
husband thinks he can go down with Fran- 


coise to open the shop. When he comes up 








DEATH. 








again, he finds his wife still very white, 
stiffened in the same posture; only her eyes 
are open. She is dead. 

M. Rousseau has been to long expecting 
to lose her. He does not weep, he is simply 
crushed and tired out. He goes down again 
sees Francoise put up the shop shutters; 
and, with his own hand, writes on a sheet 
of paper, “Closed on account of death;”’ 
then he sticks this sheet on to the middle 
shutter with four wafers. Up-stairs, the 
whole morning is taken up with cleaning 
and putting the room to rights. Francoise 
passes a cloth over the floor, takes away the 
phials, puts a lighted taper and a cup of 
holy-water near the dead woman; for Ad- 
ele’s sister is expected, that Agathe who 
has the tongue of a serpent, and the maid 
does not want anybody to be able to ac- 
euse her of bad housekeeping. M. Rous- 


52 








DEATH. 








seau has sent a clerk to go through with the 
necessary formalities. He himself goes to 
the church and discusses at length the fun- 
eral expenses. His being in affliction is 
no reason why he should be cheated. He 
loved his wife well, and, if she can see him 
now, he is sure she is pleased at his bar- 
gaining with the curés and undertaker’s 
men. Still, for the sake of the neighbor- 
hood, he wishes to have a proper burial. At 
last, he strikes a bargain: he will give a 
hundred and sixty francs to the church, and 
three hundred francs to the undertaker. 
He calculates that, with the minor ex- 
penses, he will not get through with less 
than five hundred francs. 

When M. Rousseau comes home, he sees 
Agathe, his sister-in-law, installed by the 
dead woman's side. Agathe is a tall, lean 


woman, with red eyes and thin, bluish lips. 


20 








DEATH. 








The couple quarrelled with her three years 
ago, and have seen nothing of her sine. 
She rises ceremoniously, then kisses her 
brother-in-law. In the presence of death, 
all quarrels are made up. Then M. Rous- 
seau, who could not cry this morning, sobs, 
finding his poor wife white and stiff, her 
nose still morepinched, her face so shrunk- 
en that he hardly recognizes her. Agathe 
remains dry-eyed. She has taken the best 
arm-chair, she casts her eyes slowly over 
the room, as if making a detailed inventory 
of the furniture. As yet, she has not 
brought up the question of her interests; 
but it is obvious that she is very anxious, 
and is wondering whether there is a will. 
On the morning of the funeral, at the 
moment when the body is to be placed upon 
the bier, it appears that the undertaker has 


made a mistake, and sent too short a cof- 


54 








DEATH. 








fin. His men have to go for another. Mean- 
while, the hearse is waiting at the door, the 
neighborhood is all agog. This is a fresh 
torment to M. Rousseau. If it could bring 
his wife back to life again, to keep her so 
long, it might be.... ! At last, poor madame 
Rousseau is brought down, and the coffin 
exposed only ten minutes below, in the 
doorway hung with black. A hundred peo- 
ple, or so, are waiting in the street,— 
tradespeople of the neighborhood, tenants 
in the house, friends of the household, a 
few workmen in overcoats. The procession 
starts; M. Rousseau leads the mourning. 
And, as the funeral passes, the neighbors 
cross themselves rapidly, speaking under 
their breath. It’s the stationer’s wife, isn't 
it? that little yellow woman who was noth- 
ing but skin and bones. Ah! well! she will 


be better off underground! But that is the 








DEATH. 








way with well-to-do business people, work- 
ing to enjoy themselves in their old age! 
She’s going to enjoy herself now, the sta- 
tioner’s wife is! And the neighbors’ wives 
are of the opinion that M. Rousseau is do- 
ing things in very proper fashion, because 
he walks behind the hearse, bareheaded, all 
alone, pale, and his scant hair flying in the 
wind. 

At the church, the priests hurry over the 
ceremony in forty minutes. Agathe, who 
has taken a seat in the front row, seems to 
be counting the lighted candles. No doubt, 
she is thinking that her _ brother-in-law 
might have done things with less ostenta- 
tion; for, after all, if there is no will, and 
she inherits half the property, she will have 
to pay her share toward the funeral. The 
priests say a last prayer, pass the holy- 
water sprinkler from hand to hand, and go 


56 








DEATH. 








out. Almost every one goes. The three 
mourning coaches drive up, and the ladies 
get into them. Behind the hearse, only M. 
Rousseau is left, still bareheaded, and thir- 
ty others, or so, friends who do not dare 
to slink away. The hearse is hung simply 
with black drapery fringed with white. The 
passers-by raise their hats, and pass on 
quickly. 

As M. Rousseau has no family tomb, he 
has merely got a five years’ lease at the 
Montmartre cemetery, promising himself to 
buy a perpetual grant later, when he will 
exhume his wife, to settle her in her home 
forever. 


The hearse stops at the end of the avenue, 
and the coffin is carried by hand among the 
low tombstones, to a grave dug in the soft 
earth. Those present shuffle their feet in 
silence. Then the priest withdraws, after 
mumbling twenty words between his teeth. 
On every hand lie little gardens, closed by 








DEATH. 








iron-work gates, graves decked with carna- 
tions, and green trees; the white slabs, in 
the midst of this verdure, look quite new 
and gay. M. Rousseau is very much taken 
with one monument, a slender column sur- 
mounted by the symbolic urn. That morn- 
ing a stonecutter had come to bother him 
with plans; and he thinks of how, when he 
buys his perpetual grant, he will have just 
such a column, with that pretty vase, put 
over his wife’s tombstone. 

But Agathe leads him away, and, when 
they have got back to the shop, decides at 
last to speak about her interests. When 
she learns that there is a will, she draws 
herself up stiffly and goes, slamming the 
door. Never will she set foot again in that 
shanty. M. Rousseau has still, at moments, 
a great sorrow that chokes him; but what, 
stupifies him, above all else, makes his head 
feel empty and his limbs restless, is that 
the shop is shut, on a week-day. 


58 








DEATH. 








TY. 


January has been hard. No work, no 
bread, and no fire in the house. The Moris- 
seaus have almost died of want. The wife 
is a washerwoman; the husband, a mason. 
They live at the Batignolles, in the rue Car- 
dinet, in a dark house that spreads pesti- 
lence through the neighborhood. Their 
room, on the fifth floor, is so dilapidated 
that the rain comes in through the cracks 
in the ceiling; but still they would not com- 
plain, if their little Charlot, a boy of ten, 
did not need good food to make a man of 
him. 


59 








DEATH. 








The child is puny, a mere nothing lays 
him up. When he went to school, if he 
worked hard, trying to learn everything all 
at once, he would come home sick. Very 
intelligent withal, and nice little toad, talk- 
ing beyond his years. On days when they 
have no bread to give him, his parents cry 
like fools. The more so that children are 
dying off like flies, from the top to the bot- 
tom of the house, so unsanitary is it . 

There is ice to be broken in the streets. 
Indeed the father has succeeded in getting 
a job; he clears the gutters with a pickaxe, 
and in the evening brings home forty sous. 
While waiting for his house-building work 
to begin again, it is always something not 
to starve. 

But, one day, the man comes home to find 
Charlot in bed. His mother doesn’t know 
what ails him. She had sent him to Cour- 








DEATH. 








celles, to his aunt’s, who deals in second- 
hand clothes, to see if he could not get a 
jacket that would be warmer than his cot- 
ton blouse, in which he shivers. His aunt 
had only two old overcoats, both of them 
too big, and the little fellow had come home 
all of a tremble, with a drunken air, as if 
he had been drinking. Now he is very red 
on his pillow, he talks nonsense, he thinks 
he is playing marbles, and is singing songs. 

His mother has hung a tattered piece of 
a shawl in front of the window, to stop up 
a broken pane; at the top, there are only 
two panes left free, which let in the livid 
gray of the sky. Want has emptied the 
chest of drawers, all the linen is at the 
pawnbroker’s. One evening they sold a 
table and two chairs. Charlot used to sleep 
on the floor; but since he fell sick, thev 


have given him the bed, and even there he 


61 








DEATH. 








is still badly off, for the wool in the mat- 
tress has been taken, handful by handful, 
half a pound at a time, to a second-hand 
dealer, for four or five sous. Now the fath- 
er and mother sleep in a corner, on a straw 
mattress that a dog would not have. 

Meanwhile, both look at Charlot tossing 
about in the bed. What on earth ails the 
kid, to make him so queer in the head? 
Like enough, some beast has bitten him, or 
else he has been given something bad to 
drink. A neighbor, madame Bonnet, comes 
in; and, after looking at the boy, says it is 
chills and fever. She knows all about it, 
she lost her husband by just such a sick- 
ness. 

The mother weeps, pressing Charlot in 
her arms. The father goes out like a mad- 
man, and runs for a doctor. He brings one 


back, very tall and prim looking; he listens 


62 








DEATH. 








at the child’s back, he taps him on the chest, 
without saying a word. Then madame 
Bonnet must go to her room for pencil and 
paper, so that he can write his prescription. 
When he goes, still mute, the mother asks 
him in a choking voice,— 

OW hat: isi, sir?” 

“Pleurisy,’ he answers curtly, without 
explanation. 

Then he asks, in his turn,— 

“Are you enrolled at the bureau of chari- 
ties?” 

“No, sir. ... We were well off last sum- 
mer. It’s the winter that has killed us.” 

“So much the worse! so much the 
worse!” 

And he promises to return. Madame 
Bonnet lends twenty sous, to go the apothe- 
cary’s. With Morisseau’s forty sous they 


have bought two pounds of beef, some soft 


63 








DEATH. 








coal, and candles. This first night passes 
off well. They keep up the fire. The sick 
boy, as if put to sleep by the warmth, has 
stopped talking; his little hands are burn- 
ing. Seeing him weighed down by the fever, 
his parents feel easier; and they are stupi- 
fied, next day, in fresh terror, when the 
physician shakes his head by the bedside, 
with the wry face of a man who has given 
up all hope. 

For five days there is no change. Charlot 
sleeps, as crushed upon his pillow. In the 
room the breath of poverty grows strong- 
er, seems to come in with the wind, through 
the holes in the roofing and window. The 
second evening, they sold the mother’s last 
chemise ;the third, they had to pull out some 
more handfuls of wool from under the sick 
boy, to pay the apothecary. Then every- 


thing failed them, there was nothing left. 


64 








DEATH. 








Morrisseau is still breaking ice; only his 
forty sous are not enough. As this severe 
cold may kill Charlot, he longs for a thaw, 
even though he dreads it. When he goes 
off to work, he is glad to see the streets 
white; then he thinks of the little boy dying 
up there, and fervently prays for a ray of 
sunshine, a bit of spring warmth, to sweep 
away the snow. If they only had put their 
name down at the bureau of charities, they 
would have the doctor and medicines for 
nothing. The mother has been to the city 
hall; they answered her that there were too 
many applications, she must wait. Still, 
she got some bread tickets; a benovolenut 
lady gave her five francs. Then destitution 
began once more. 

The fifth day, Morisseau brings home his 
last forty sous. The thaw has come; he 


has been discharged. Then all is over: the 


65 








DEATH. 








stove stays cold, there is no bread, no more 
prescriptions are taken to the apothecary’s. 
In the room, trickling with dampness, the 
father and mother shiver opposite the little 
dying boy. Madame Bonnet does not come 
to see them any more, because she has a 
tender heart, and it grieves her too much. 
The people of the house hurry quickly past 
their door. At times,, the mother, in a fit 
of tears, throws herself upon the bed, kisses 
the child, as if to relieve his suffering and 
cure him. The father, stupified, stays at 
the window for hours, raising the old shawl 
looking at the thaw running in the gut- 
ters, the water dripping in big drops from 
the roofs, and blackening the street. Per- 
haps it may do Charlot good. 

One morning, the doctor announces that 
he shall not return. The child is given up. 

——“This damp weather has finished 
him,” he says. 








DEATH. 








Morisseau shakes his fist at the sky. So 
all weathers mean death to poor people! 
It froze, and that did no good; it thaws, 
and that is worse still. If his wife would 
agree, they would light a bushel of char- 
coal, and all three go together. It would 
be sooner over. 

Yet the mother has gone back to the city 
hall, the people there have promised to send 
them aid, and they are waiting. What a 
frightful day! A black chill falls from the 
ceiling; one corner is dripping with rain; 
they have to put a pail there to catch the 
drops. They have eaten nothing since the 
day before; the child has only drunk a cup 
of herb tea that the janitor’s wife brought 
up. The father sits at the table, his head in 
his hands, in a sort of stupor, with a buzzing 
in his ears. At every sound of steps, the 


mother runs to the door, thinks it is at last, 


67 








DEATH. 








the promised aid. Six o’clock strikes; no- 
thing has come. The twilight is muddy, 
slow and ghastly as a death-agony. 

Suddenly, in the deepening shadows, 
Charlot stammers out some confused 
words,— 

—‘“Mamma... mamma...” 

His mother comes to him, feels a strong 
breath upon her face. She hears nothing 
more; she vaguely makes out the child, his 
head thrown back, his neck stiffened. She 
shrieks, half crazed, imploring, — 

——“Light! quick, some light! ... My 
Charlot, speak to me!’ 

There are no more candles. In her hurry 
she scratches some matches, breaks them 
between her fingers. Then, with trembling 
hands, she feels of the child’s face. 

— “Oh! my God! he is dead! .. . Say, 


Morisseau, he is dead!” 


68 








DEATH. 








The father raises his head, blinded by 
the darkness. 

——“Well, then! what would you have? 
He’s dead. . . . It’s better so.” 

At the mother’s sobbing, madame Bon- 
net has made up her mind to come with 
her lamp. Then, as the two women are 
making Charlot tidy a knock is heard; it 
is the aid, come at last; ten francs, some 
bread tickets, and a bit of meat. Moris- 
seau laughs wildly, saying that they always 
miss the train at the bureau of charities. 

And what a poor child’s corpse, thin, 
light as a feather! You might have laid a 
sparrow upon the mattress, killed by the 
snow and picked up in the street, and it 
would not have made a smaller heap! 

Meanwhile, madame Bonnet, who has 
erown very obliging again, explains that it 


will not bring Charlot back to life, to fast 








DEATH. 








by his side. She offers to go after some bread 
and meat, adding that she will also fetch 
some candles. They let her go. When she 
comes back, she sets the table with sau- 
sages, piping hot; and the Morisseaus, fam- 
ished as they are, eat ravenously beside the 
dead body, whose little white face is just 
visible in the dim light. The stove roars, 
they are very comfortable. At moments, 
the mother’s eyes grow wet. Great tears 
drop down upon her bread. How warm 
Charlot would be! and how he would have 
liked to eat some sausage! 

Madame Bonnet insists upon sitting up 
with them. About one, when Morisseau has 
at last fallen asleep, his head resting on 
the foot of the bed, the two women make 
some coffee. Another neighbor, a seam- 
stress of eighteen, is asked in; and she 
brings the remnant of a bottle of brandy, 


70 








DEATH. 








so as to stand treat to something. Then 
the three women sip their coffee, talking 
in an undertone, telling stories of extraor- 
dinary deaths; little by little, their voices 
are raised, their tittle-tattle takes in a larg- 
er field, they chat about the house, about 
the neighborhood, about a crime committed 
in the rue Nollet. And, now and then, the 
mother gets up, goes to take a look at Char- 
lot, as if to make sure that he has not 
moved. 

The declaration not having been made 
that evening, they have to keep the little 
body all the next day. They have only one 
room; they live with Charlot, eat and sleep 
with him. At moments they forget him; 
then, when they find him there, it is like 
losing him over again. 

At last, on the third day, the coffin is 


brought, no bigger than a toy box, four 


7k 








DEATH. 








boards roughly planed, furnished free of 
charge by the administration, after verify- 
ing their certificate of indigence. And all 
aboard! they set out for the church on the 
run. Behind Charlot comes the father, 
with two comrades he has picked up on the 
way; then the mother, madame Bonnet, and 
the other neighbor, the seamstress. These 
people flounder through the mud up to mid- 
leg. It does not rain, but the fog is so 
thick that it drenches their clothes. At the 
church, the ceremony is hurried through; 
and they start off again over the muddy 
pavement. 

The cemetery is at the devil, outside the 
fortifications. They pass down the avenue 
de Saint-Ouen, through the barrier, and get 
there at last. It is a vast enclosure, a plot 
of waste land, shut in by white walls. 


Weeds grow there; the ground, often dug 


72 








DEATH. 








up, is all in humps; while, at the farther 
end, grow a row of sickly trees, soiling the 
sky with their black branches. 

The funeral moves slowly forward over 
the soft ground. Now it rains, and they 
have to wait in the shower for an old priest, 
who at last makes up his mind to venture 
forth from a little chapel. Charlot is to 
sleep at the bottom of the common trench. 
The field is strewed with crosses overturned 
by the wind, with wreaths rotted by the 
rain; a field of wretchedness and mourning, 
devastated, trampled down, sweating with 
its overmeasure of dead bodies, heaped up 
by the hunger and cold of the suburbs. 

It is over. The earth is tossed back, Char- 
lot is at the bottom of the hole; and his 
parents go, without having been able to 
kneel down in the mud in which they floun- 


der. Outside, as it is still raining, Moris- 


rf) 








DEATH. 








seau, who has three francs left, of the ten 
francs from the bureau of charities, invites 
his comrades and the women to take some- 
thing at a wine shop. They sit down to 
table, they drink two litres, they eat a piece 
of Brie cheese. Then the comrades, in their 
turn, stand two more litres. When the 
company get back to Paris, they are very 


gay. 


74 








DEATH. 








Vv 


Jean-Louis Lacour is seventy. He was 
born at la Courteille, a village of a hundred 
and fifty inhabitants, lost in the wilds of 
the wolf. He has been once in his life to 
Angers, which is forty-one miles distant; 
but he was so young that he does not re- 
member it any more. He has three chil- 
dren,—two sons, Antoine and Joseph, and 
a daughter, Catherine. The last was mar- 
ried; then her husband died, and she re- 


turned to her father’s with a little boy of 


75 








DEATH. 








twelve, Jacquinet. The family lives on five 
or six acres; just enough land to give them 
bread, and keep them from going quite 
naked. When they drink wine, they have 
sweated for it. 

La Courteille is at the end of a valley, 
with woods on every side, that shut it in 
and hide it from view. There is no church, 
the village is too poor. The curé of les 
Cormiers comes over to say mass; and, as 
the road is five good miles, he comes only 
once a fortnight. The houses, about twen- 
ty tumbledown shacks, are strung along the 
highway. Hens scratch on the dunghills 
before the doors. When a stranger goes by, 
the women crane their necks, while the chil- 
dren rolling on the ground in the sua, 
scamper off in the midst of frightened 
flocks of geese. 


76 








DEATH. 








Never has Jean-Louis been sick. He is 
tall and knotty as an oak. The sun has 
dried him up, has baked and cracked his 
skin; he has turned to the color, the rough- 
ness, and the tranquility of a tree. In grow- 
ing old, he has lost his tongue. He has 
done with speaking, finding it useless. He 
walks with long, obstinate strides, with the 
peaceful strength of an ox. 

Last year, he still was stronger than his 
sons; he would keep the hardest jobs for 
himself, silent in the fields, which seemed 
to know him and tremble. But one day, 
two months ago, his limbs gave way all of 
a sudden, and he lay for two hours across 
a furrow, like a felled trunk. Next day, he 
tried to go to work again, but his arms had 
lost their strength, the soil would no long- 
er obey him. His sons shake their heads. 
His daughter tries to keep him at home. 


7 bi 








DEATH. 








He sticks it out stubbornly, and they have 
Jacquinet go with him, so that the child can 
cry out, if his grandfather falls down. 

“What are you doing there, lazybones?” 
asks Jean-Louis of the youngster. “At 
your age, I was earning my bread.” 

“I’m tending you, grandfather,” answers 
the child. 

This gives the old man a shock . He says 
no more. In the evening, he goes to bed, 
and does not get up again. When his sons 
and daughter go to the fields, next day, 
they step in to take a look at their father, 
as they do not hear him moving. They 
find him stretched out on his bed, with open 
eyes, as if in thought. His skin is so hard 
and tanned that you can’t even tell the 
color of his complaint. 

“Well, father, out of sorts?” 


He gives a grunt, he shakes his head. 


78 








DEATH. 








“Then you’re not coming; we'll go with- 


out you?” 


Yes, he motions them to go without him. 
The harvest has begun, every hand is need- 
ed. Like enough, if they were to lose a 
morning, a sudden storm might carry away 
the sheaves. Even Jacquinet follows his 
mother and uncles. Old Lacour is left 
alone. In the evening, when his children 
come home, he is in the same place, still 
on his back, with his eyes open and that 
look of his, as if in thought. 

“So, father, you’re no better? 

No, no better. He grunts, he shakes his 
head. What can they do for him- Catherine 
suggests putting some wine to boil, with 
herbs in it; but it is too strong, it aN but 
kills him. Joseph says they will see to-mor- 


row, and they all go to bed. 


79 








DEATH. 








The next day, before going to harvest, the 
sons and daughters stop a minute, stand- 
ing by his bedside. Decidedly the old man 
is sick. Never before has he stayed on his 
back like that. Perhaps they really ought 
to call in a doctor. The trouble is that thev 
will have to go to Rougemont; a good six- 
teen miles there and sixteen miles back, 
that makes thirty-two. They would 
lose a whole day. The old man, who 
is listening to his children, fidgets and 
seems to be getting angry. He doesn’t need 
any doctor; it does no good, and it costs 
money. 

—— “You don’t want one?” asks Antoine. 
“Then we'll get to work?” 

Of course they must go to work. They 
wouldn’t make him any better by staying 
there, would they? The soil needs looking 


after more than he. And three days pass 


8o 








DEATH. 








by; the children go to the fields every morp- 
ing. Jean-Louis does not move, all alone, 
drinking out of a jug when he is thirsty. 
He is like one of those old horses that fall 
down in a corner from weariness, and are 
left to die. He has worked for sixty years; 
he may as well go, seeing that he is no long- 
er good for anything, except to take up 
room and bother people. 

His children themselves feel no great sor- 
row. Tilling the soil has made them re- 
signed to these things; they are too near to 
it to owe it a grudge for taking the old 
man. A look at him in the morning, a look 
in the evening; they can do no more. If 
their father should pick up again, after all, 
it would prove that he was mighty stoutly 
built. If he dies, it will show that he had 
death in his body; and everybody knows 
that, when you have death in your body, 


81 








DEATH. 








nothing will drive it out; not signs of the 
cross any more than medicines. A cow, 
now, you can do something for. 

In the evening, Jean-Louis questions his 
children about the harvest. When he hears 
them count up the sheaves and congratulate 
themselves on the fine weather, his eyes 
sparkle. Once more, they talk of going 
for the doctor; but the old man loses his 
temper, and they are afraid of killing him 
all the sooner if they cross him. He only 
asks to see the district constable, an old 
comrade. Old Nicolas is his senior, for he 
was seventy-five last Candlemas. He is 
straight as a poplar. He comes and gravely 
sits down beside Jean-Louis. Jean-Louis, 
who has lost his tongue, looks at him with 
his little washed-out eyes. Old Nicolas 
looks at him, too, having nothing to say. 


And the two old men sit there, face to face, 


82 








DEATH. 








for an hour, without uttering a word, no 
doubt remembering things far away, in 
their bygone days. That evening, when his 
children come home from harvest, they find 
Jean-Louis dead, stretched out on his back, 
stiff, and his eyes staring up. 

Yes, the old man has died without mov- 
ing a limb. He has breathed his last 
straight before him, one breath more in the 
wide country. Like the beasts that hide 
themselves and submit, he did not even 
trouble a neighbor, he did his little business 
all alone. 

——“Father is dead,” says Joseph, call- 
ing the others. 

And they all, Antoine, Catherine, Jac- 
quinet, repeat,— 

——“Father is dead.” 

They are not surprised. Jacquinet 
stretches out his neck in curiosity; the wo- 


83 








DEATH. 








man pulls out her handkerchief, the two 
young men walk about, saying nothing, 
their grave faces turning paler under their 
tan. He had lasted pretty well; he was 
rugged, their old father was! And this 
thought comforts his children; they are 
proud of the family ruggedness. 

They watch with their father up to elev- 
en, then they all give way to sleep; and 
Jean-Louis sleeps alone, with his inscrut- 
able face, which seems still to be thinking. 

At daybreak, Joseph sets out for les Cor- 
miers, to notify the priest. Meanwhile, as 
there are still some sheaves to be brought 
in, Antoine and Catherine go to the fields 
just the same, leaving the body in Jacquin- 
et’s care. The little boy finds the time pass 
heavily in the old man’s company, seeing 
that he does not even stir; and he goes out, 


now and then, into the street, throws stones 








DEATH. 








at some sparrows, looks on at a_ pedler 
spreading out some silk neckerchiefs be- 
fore two neighbors’ wives; then, when he 
remembers his grandfather, he runs in 
again, makes sure that he has not moved, 
and slips out once more, to see two dogs 
fight. 

As the door has been left open, the hens 
come in, walk round quietly, rummaging 
on the trodden ground with their bills. <A 
red cock stands erect on his feet, stretches 
out his neck, rounds his live-coal of an eye, 
anxious about this body, whose presence 
there he cannot explain; he is a prudent 
and sagacious cock, who, no doubt, knows 
that the old man is not used to lie abed 
after sunrise; and he ends by crowing his 
sonorous Clarion note, singing the old man's 
death, while the hens go out again, one by 


one, clucking and pecking the ground. 


85 








DEATH. 








The priest from les Cormiers cannvt 
come till five. Ever since morning, you 
could hear the cartwright sawing deal 
boards and driving in nails. Those who 
do not know the news say, “How? can Jean- 
Louis be dead!” because the la Courteille 
folk know those sounds well. 

Antoine and Catherine have got back, the 
harvest is over; they cannot say they are 
disappointed, for the grain has not been sv 
fine for ten years. 

The whole family are waiting for the 
priest, and they busy themselves, to keep 
up their patience. Catherine puts the soup 
on the fire, Joseph draws some water, they 
send Jacquinet to see if the hole has been 
dug in the graveyard. At last, but not be- 
fore six, the curé arrives. He is in a spring 
tilt-cart, with a young ragamuffin to act as 


clerk. He gets out at the Lacours’ door, 








DEATH. 








takes his stole and surplice out of a news- 
paper; then puts them on saying,— 





“Let us be quick; I must be back by 
seven.” 


But nobody is in a hurry. They have to 
go for two neighbors, who are to carry the 
deceased on the old black wood stretcher. 
As the yare, at last, on the point of start- 
ing, Jacquinet comes running up, and 
screams out that the grave is not finished 
yet, but that they can come along, all the 
same. 


Then the priest goes first, reading Latin 
out of a book. The little clerk who follows 
him holds an old holy-water vase of em- 
bossed copper, into which he has dipped a 
sprinkler. It is only in the middle of the 
village that another small boy comes out 
from the barn where mass is said every 
fortnight, and puts himself at the head of 
the procession, holding up a cross on the 
end of a stick. The family walk behind 


&7 








DEATH. 








the body; little by little, all the village folk 
join them; a procession of little ragamuf- 
fins, bareheaded, their shirts all unbut- 
toned, brings up the rear. 

The graveyard is at the other end of la 
Courteille. So the neighbors set down the 
- stretcher three times; they stand puffing, 
while the funeral waits; then they go on 
again. You hear the clomping of their 
wooden shoes on the hard ground. When 
they get there, the grave, as Jacquinet said, 
is not ready; the gravedigger is still in it, 
and you see him duck down, then reappear, 
at regular intervals, with every shovelful 
of earth. 

A simple hedge runs round the grave- 
yard. Brambles grow there, to which the 
boys come, of September evenings, to eat 
blackberries. It is a garden in the open 
fields. At one end are enormous currant- 
bushes; a pear-tree in one corner has grown 
like an oak; a short avenue of lindens casts 








DEATH. 








a shade in the middle, where the old men 
smoke their pipes in summer. The silence 
is all a-tremble with life; the sap of this 
rich soil runs red with blood of the pop- 
pies. 

They have set down the coffin beside the 
grave. The small boy who carried the cross 
has planted it at the dead man’s feet, while 
the priest, standing at his head, keeps on 
reading Latin from his book. But those 
present are engrossed, above all, with 
watching the gravedigger at his work. They 
surround the grave, follow his shovel with 
their eyes; and, when they turn round, the 
curé is gone with the two boys; only the 
family are left waiting patiently. 

At last, the grave is dug. 

——Tt’s deep enough, you bet!” cries 
one of the peasants who carried the body. 

And every one helps let down the coffin. 
Old Lacour can take his comfort in that 
hole. He knows the soil, and the soil 








DEATH. 








knows him. They will get on well together. 
Here it is sixty years since it made this ap- 
pointment with him, on the day when he 
first struck his pickaxe into it. Their love 
was to end so; the earth was to take him 
and keep him; and how good a rest! He 
will hear only the light feet of the birds 
bending the blades of grass. No one will 
walk over his head; he will stay at home, 
without any one’s disturbing him. It is 
sunlit death, sleep without end in the peace 
of the fields. 

His children have drawn near. Cath- 
erine, Antoine, Joseph, take a handful of 
earth and throw it upon the old man. Jac- 
quinet, who has picked some _ poppies, 
throws his nosegay, too. Then the family 
go home to their soup, the cattle come in 
from the meadows, the sun sets. A wari 
night puts the village to sleep. 


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